FluxBB Review - General Features & Requirements

Mon March 1, 2010 17:38 |
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Web Site: http://www.fluxbb.org
Download here: Download FluxBB
Community Forum: Support
Released under: GPL License.
Current version: 1.2.22 (September 18, 2009).
Price: Free.

From FluxBB website :

FluxBB is a free open source forum application designed to be fast, light and user friendly. Version of FluxBB, currently under development, adds a powerful extension system enabling you to create the forum that you really need.

Since the PunBB rights solding to a commercial company in 2007, FluxBB is now the official fork of PunBB.

Review Updates

  • March 1, 2010: Update with FluxBB 1.2.22.

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
Languages Details
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases Details
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
  • Postgresql
  • SQLite
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers Details
List of compatible browsers.
  • Mozilla Firefox 3
  • Mozilla Firefox 2
  • Mozilla Firefox 1
  • Opera
  • Safari
  • Konqueror
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6
  • Chrome
  • Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies Details
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
  • HTML and Javascript
Localization Details
Languages supported by FluxBB.
Yes Yes.
  • Afrikaans
  • Arabic
  • Bangla
  • Belarusian
  • Bosnian
  • Bulgarian
  • Catalan
  • Croatian (Hrvatski)
  • Czech
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Estonian
  • Farsi
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Galician
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Kurdish
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu (Pakistan)
  • Vietnamese

The full list is available at the FluxBB Download page.

It is adviced to install FluxBB software on Linux box, with Apache web server and a open source database, like MySQL or PostgreSQL.

One particular feature of FluxBB is to support SQLite database, which does not need any database additional daemon. SQLite is a database API, which uses the SQL query language and that only use one file locally. These is particurlarly useful for PHP hosting that does not provide any database connection.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat/Threaded
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
No No
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • URL Redirection Forum
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
No No
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
Unknown Unknown
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
No No
Posts
Post Editing Form Details
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Plain Text
  • Preview Button
 Emoticons Details Yes Yes
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • BBCode
 Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
No No
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
No No
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
No No

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
No. Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Yes Yes
Private Messages Details
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
No No Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
Yes Yes
Instant Messaging Details
Users can communicate in the forum like in other IM softwares (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk, AIM,...)
No No Quick Reply Box
Write a post directly from the topic page.
Yes Yes
Calendar Details No No Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Details No No Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
Yes Yes
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators (represented by the Syndicate icon)
RSS 2.0

Once again, minimal forum features are implemented. However, these features are technically sufficent to support a classical forum.

These absences have however a very interesting positive point : FluxBB is a very fast software, and does not need T1 connection for every members of your community.

 
 
General Features &
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